Sihanoukville intro.Cambodia's best-known coastal resort town, Sihanoukville, known to its expat residents as 'Snooky', holds the country's best beaches. A colourful upstart in a land of thousands of years' history, the town was built 50 years ago as a deep-water port, soon becoming a fashionable elite retreat. The party ended in 1970, with the resort's buildings being used as target practice by the Khmer Rouge and bombed by the US Air Force. During the last, peaceful 14 years, rebuilding has taken place and visitors are arriving again. The resort's glorious beaches can get comparatively crowded on weekends, but are refreshingly deserted during the rest of the week. There are six strands in all, with Otres Beach the least crowded, the most lovely and the most suitable for water sports. Accommodation here ranges from beach huts through bungalows and guest houses to recently built, four-star Sihanoukville hotels, with those on the beaches the most popular. Author: Graham Dewe